Pros and Cons about E-books?

mmm... pancakes said:

I know this is an old thread, but I'm in the process of compiling my own e-book. Geek, how would you go about making a nice cover? What is considered nice by e-book standards?

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Well, to begin, don't look to ebooks for the standard of good covers. Look at the big boys. If you want to have an image/painting/etc. on the cover, get a professional artist to do it. There are so many out there, you might find someone who will let you use their art for very cheap. Another route is to not have a picture, but to use nice lettering and a textured background for the cover. I've seen anthologies use this to good effect, though the really nice ones and the text embossed or something.

I would suggest coming up with a cover and then post it here for us to look at. I'd be happy to give you some thoughts on it.

You guys rock. I'm not exactly an experienced writer, so any and all help welcomed .

Right, well my book is not destined for the bestseller list, though I believe it has a small niche market.

The book is for English teachers abroad - like me - who teach children who have never spoken a word of English before in their lives: absolute beginners. Hence the shatteringly original title: EFL for absolute beginners. The idea is that someone buys this book for the general tips and the details of my own experiences, but mostly for the worksheets and games file. That means some of it will be read, some will be printed, and some will hopefully be used as a reference. I'm not sure if I really need a title page, but...?

Here goes putting the two (VERY early draft) titles pages I have already. Be nice (please).
http://paintedover.com/uploads/show.php?loc=19&f=title2.jpg

Well, I can't seem to get the other one to work. Comments on the one welcome, then.

I once downloaded Jenna's e-book template thingy, and that basically just had the title in the middle of the page, and a border around the outside. How far do I need to go?

PS the background for the draft title page above is from clipart. I'm assuming it's not okay to actually use it... any thoughts?

It depends on the licensing agreement. If you need stock photography but can't afford to pay the big boys, try http://www.sxc.hu for a huge collection of free images you can use.

That one's a little overcomplicated, I think - too many words scattered all over the place. Look at hard-cover books and design based on those.

Medievalist said:

I hate e-books that are straight dumps of a word processor file into a .pdf.

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Let's say I'm doing one of these anyway, mostly as an experiment.

My source allows only pdfs.

Any advice?